Because work should be done excellently and work should be "ensouling"

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Volunteers, Mercenaries, Drones & Indentured Servants

Marc Dickmann is a
pastor. Like most pastors, he depends on volunteers to complete the bulk of
the work for which he is responsible. It’s not “church as
usual” where Marc leads. Marc’s volunteers
lead innovative and critical ministries like “LiveBirds,” a growing business
that creates jobs for people impacted by HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe; “Christmas
Village Toy Store", a pop-up Christmas store that empowers at-risk families to
provide affordable new toys for their families at discounted prices; “Family
Promise,” which uses the church facilities as a week-long shelter for families
that are working towards getting back on their feet.

Can you imagine
entrusting the most critical and complex portions of your strategy to volunteers? How on earth do you keep workers motivated
when you have no compensation to offer, no real authority to control their
calendars or power to simply direct them?

Max DePree said, “The first responsibility of a leader is to
define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the leader is a
servant.” One reason Marc is such a
smashing success with his all-volunteer workforce is the consistency with which
he defines reality, then says thank you and serves people in between. When you have a meeting with Marc to cover
the details of the work you are doing with him, you can expect a card to show
up in your mailbox a few days later. The
card will say “Thank you for making a contribution by ---.” Then he goes on to
detail what contribution you are making and why that contribution is so
important, thereby defining reality. When you get that letter, you feel
indescribably warm inside.

Marc motivates
volunteers by tapping into people’s deep-seated desire to make a lasting
contribution that is appreciated by others.

You’d be much more
effective and your workplace would be much more ensouled if you regarded your
employees as volunteers; people over whom you have no authority or power, but who
will accomplish remarkable things when they see the contribution they can make
and sense gratitude from you for making it.

The notion of an “employee" is illusion anyway. Workers are either volunteers or they are something completely different. If
your “employees” are only working for the almighty dollar, then they are really
mercenaries. If you are directing the
whole show, then they are just drones. If you are micro-managing temp/contract workers, then
they are indentured servants. The difference between a volunteer and all the others is that the volunteer does the work because they want to, all the others do it because they have to. Question is, who do you think is going to do the best job of the work before them? Someone that wants to do it or someone that has to do it?

Ensoul lives and advance
the organization’s mission by showing your “volunteers” that you understand the
contribution they are making and that you are grateful for their efforts. How will you follow Marc's lead today?

To find out how a chicken is changing the face of HIV/AIDS in Africa, read on here Live Birds.